Betrayal

A/N: Many apologies for being absent for so long. I hit a wall on all of my current stories and around trying to get back to work on them, started on a new one as well. Hope you all enjoy, please read and review.

Kelly Severide was drawn out of his dream by the sound of somebody screaming.

He opened his eyes and looked around his dark bedroom and wondered for a few seconds if that had only been a dream too. Then he heard the screams again and realized it was Casey in his room across the hall.

"Matt?" he called out as he threw the covers back and got to his feet. "You okay?" He made his way to the door in the dark, opened it, headed over to Casey's room, the door wouldn't open and for a minute he thought he'd have to kick it in before the bolt finally turned with the knob and it opened up. He felt along the wall for the light switch and when he did, the room lit up and he saw Casey on the floor by his bed, looking like he'd turned over one time too many and simply fallen over the side. Which would definitely explain the dazed expression on the blonde man's face as he slowly rolled over onto his back.

"Casey, you alright?" Kelly asked as he stepped over to his friend and knelt down beside him to take a look.

"I'm fine," Casey muttered shakily as he turned over and went flat against the floor, "jus...just a nightmare, sorry I woke you up."

Now Severide realized that Casey was tangled up in the sheet and bedspread which had been pulled onto the floor with him.

"You hurt yourself?"

"No, no," Casey wearily answered as he turned over to push up on his hands, "Just...a little rattled, I'm fine."

An odd choice of words when half of his body was covered in bruises in the yellow and green range from the past few shifts they'd worked. The last couple weeks in general had been more hellish on call than usual, Kelly guessed it wasn't any wonder Casey would have a nightmare. He stood up as Casey did, Matt absently bunched up the covers and held them against him, Kelly reached over and put a hand on Matt's shoulder and noticed him wince and jerk back. "You sure you're okay?"

Matt pursed his lips tight together but nodded, "Yeah, I'm good...sorry, sorry I woke you up."

"You have a dream about that last call?" Kelly asked.

Casey shook his head, "No, nothing like that, just a nightmare."

"What about?"

Casey shook his head again, "I...don't remember."

"You sure you're okay?" Kelly wasn't convinced, but he got the impression Casey didn't want him there.

Matt looked towards the floor and just nodded anxiously.

"You just want to go back to bed?"

Matt nodded again, this time a small sound caught in his throat.

"Okay...you want me to stay with you?" Kelly asked.

Casey shook his head from side to side frantically.

"Okay...but if you need anything, just holler," Kelly told him.

Casey blinked and nodded, "I will, goodnight, Kelly."

Matt felt like his limbs had turned to jelly as he shakily remade the bed before turning off the lights and crawling back in. He pulled the covers up to his neck and gripped them tight in both hands as he lay there and waited. Waited for his body to stop shaking. Waiting for his heart to stop pulsating so hard he could feel it in his ears. Waited, for this whole strange feeling to go away. He'd lied when he told Kelly he couldn't remember what his nightmare was. He could. Not very clearly, but part of it had stayed with him, and he didn't want Kelly to know about it. He wished he could forget it.

He'd had nightmares for most of his life. Maybe that was typical for most people, it seemed either you didn't dream or they were weird or bizarre or horrifying. Dreams where nothing bad happened seemed to be very rare. And he'd had similar feelings to this before, waking up screaming, heart racing, pulse racing, hard to catch his breath. Only it wasn't entirely the same feeling. In addition to those regular side effects of a nightmare, Casey felt another sensation he wasn't sure he could put a name to, but the way it made him feel was disgusted.

The whole dream hadn't been very clear, he remembered a vague sensation of fighting with somebody, some nameless, faceless figure in the dark. He remembered swinging and throwing punches and they just seemed to hit the air, but his assailant had knocked the crap out of him and pinned him to the ground so he couldn't move.

He felt the hot breath on his face and neck, he felt the strong fingers digging indentations in his sides, he struggled, he tried to get loose, but to no avail.

Suddenly there was a light, not a bright one, just enough that he could see the man on top of him. It was Kelly. His eyes were hard, his teeth were gnashed as he grabbed Casey and in one hard move flipped him over on his stomach. Casey tried to get away but it felt like he was paralyzed, he struggled and yelled as he realized what Kelly was going to do, but he couldn't escape.

Casey was drawn out of the memory of the dream as he felt something on his face, he let go of the blankets to reach up and wipe away the tears that were rolling down the side of his nose. What the hell was wrong with him? He was losing it over a nightmare, a dream.

A chill ran through his body and he pulled the covers tighter as the other half of that thought invaded his mind: a dream where his best friend of 20 years brutally attacked and raped him.

Casey told himself he was losing his mind. People had crazy dreams all the time, it didn't mean anything. Nobody even knew why people had dreams, just your subconscious messing with you, taking advantage of the idle hours until you woke up and were occupied all day.

It was just a dream, he repeated to himself, it wasn't real. Nothing had happened, and nothing would happen. He'd known Kelly for half of his life, he knew nothing like that could possibly happen.

So why had he dreamt it?

Casey kicked himself for letting himself get so worked up over this. It was a nightmare, people had nightmares all the time, about all kinds of horrible things that didn't happen, and didn't make any sense. It didn't mean anything.

So why couldn't he go back to sleep?